Your Gun Will Never Lick You

In the big book of the DogHouse Manifesto, CHAPTER 86: COMMON TRUTHS ABOUT DOGS AND GUNS. Paragraph 3C-Gii states, and I quote: “Your dog will relieve himself, chew up, and/or defecate on your furniture, rug, or area carpet only if it is really expensive, or really inconvenient. You’re gun will never relieve itself, chew up, and/or defecate on your furniture, rug or area carpet, but it will never be glad to see you, and your gun will never lick you.”

I’ll bet you’re wondering why I’m telling you this? I have a neighbor across the street named, Jack. Jack is about twenty years younger than me, is married, has a couple kids; an 11-year-old boy named, Jack Jr., and 14-year-old daughter named, Jackie, except spelled with the letter ‘Q.’ Okay, so Jack and his wife, Jacqueline, are either really self-absorbed, or not very imaginative! Speaking for myself, I don’t really care which…

So, last week Jack Sr. pays me a visit. We’re sitting in the DogHouse listening to some old school tunes; Jack’s drinking a beer, I’m having coffee, Eightball is snoozing away in his daybed, and out of the blue Jack asks,

“What kind of gun do you think I should I get for home defense?”

I swallow my coffee, and peer at Jack over my glasses. I am waiting for the punch-line. When there isn’t one, I asked him,

“Well, that depends… what do you know about guns?”

Jack shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, drained his beer, crushed the can and feigned a sitting jump-shot from his lounge chair to my recycling bin. Eightball flinched, growled, yawned and then went back to sleep.

“What’s to know? You load it. You point it. You pull the trigger, and it goes bang! Simple, right?”

Simple? Yes. Right- only kind of- but the very idea was just wrong, wrong, wrong.